Hey, I'm Carlos. Welcome
Head of Product Development | Product Design
I lead world class teams to define, build, and operate world class products - all with the goal of solving impossibly hard problems.
About Me
I've been early to every wave that mattered. Tesla before the mass market, as their first Master Data Analyst. Rivian as employee #264, before the truck existed. Inspiration Mobility as PM #1 — walked in and built a SaaS platform from zero, closed a Fortune 20 in year one.
I'm a product leader who writes SQL in production, deploys MCP servers, and can explain a data model to a board. I close the gap between strategy and execution by actually showing up on both sides.
Approach to Work
Start with the hard problem
I resist the urge to jump to solutions. The real work is defining what you're actually trying to solve — and being honest when the answer changes.
Build to understand
Prototyping is thinking, not decoration. I get something in front of real users fast, because intuition alone doesn't tell you where the product breaks.
Operate what you ship
I stay close to what I build after launch. The product decisions that matter most don't happen in the roadmap — they happen in the data after go-live.
Roles
Head of Product Development
Inspiration Mobility · 2022 – Present
Lead Technical PM
Rivian Automotive · 2019 – 2022
Master Data Analyst
Tesla · 2015 – 2019
Tesla
2015 – 2019
Master Data Analyst · Delivery Experience Lead
Cut Purchase Order approval turnaround time from ~3-4 weeks to ~2-5 days by implementing digital PO approval processes.
Reduced incorrect vendor payments by 70% by implementing vendor master data management practices that ensured accuracy and SOX compliance.
Hired as the first field employee to manage last-mile logistics in the Intermountain West; accountable for factory-to-customer deliveries across 6 states.
Established Tesla's revenue recognition practices for regulation-heavy states including Utah and Texas.
Rivian
2019 – 2022
Lead Technical PM, Supply Chain Systems · Employee #264
Hired to implement SAP S/4HANA for vendor onboarding and procurement as Rivian moved from prototype to production. Quickly recognized SAP as a strong system of record that would stifle innovation against the speed of BOM evolution and production milestones.
Borrowed 2 full-stack engineers from Sales Systems for a 2-month engagement and shipped basecamp.rivian.com, a React/AWS platform that moved buyers and quality engineers out of SAP into a modern, malleable tool; the first built-in-house software in Rivian's supply chain org.
Scaled Basecamp across direct component procurement, fixed asset procurement, warehousing, and vendor/materials master data; the change saved 80+ supply managers and quality engineers 2-4 hours of manual SAP work daily.
Inspiration Mobility
2022 – Present
Head of Product Development
Reframed Inspiration's position from asset manager to data integrator for a fragmented industry; conceived Garage Enterprise, a platform unifying customers' legacy fleet data with managed integrations and AI workflows.
Built the product team from scratch; hired 3 product managers responsible for customer-facing platform, mobile app, a suite of internal tools, and AI-based automation using our proprietary AI applet building suite.
Owned roadmap prioritization and reporting to the executive leadership team; presented product strategy and roadmap to the board twice annually.
Defined feature set and UX for our customer-facing Fleet Management System v1 and v2, along with our customer-facing AI strategy.
Set the company's AI adoption strategy with CTO and Head of Engineering; selected the standard models, guardrails, and data access policies.
Forked OpenCode into 'InspirationCode,' an internal AI harness for ops and executive teams; product and engineering encode workflows as opinionated patterns, keeping us model-agnostic as AI evolves, and making projects portable across people, not just models.
End-to-end supply chain portal for Rivian
95% reduction in manual PO creation — 20+ hrs/week saved per buyer.
Lead Technical PM · Rivian Automotive
Multi-tenant SaaS for market and event organizers
Built solo from concept to production. Real money movement, row-level tenant isolation.
Product Manager & Technical Co-Founder
Enterprise AI deployment — MCP, RAG, and governance at scale
Took adoption from a small minority to ~100% of employees org-wide.
Director of Product Management